Taking your first astrophoto
Bright constellations like Orion are a great target to get started
One of the aspects of astrophotography that newcomers find most difficult is focusing their camera. It’s easy photographing a friend’s wedding reception, or your sleepy kitten in the daytime, but the first time you try to focus your camera on the night sky you’ll probably want to throw it into the bushes in frustration. Finding focus is actually quite easy once you know how. First, take off the lens cap (personal tip here: get into the habit of always putting lens caps into your left pocket, think ‘Left for Lens’, so you won’t forget where they are). Next, set your camera focus to ‘Manual’ instead of ‘Auto Focus’ and then point it at a streetlight or a light on the side of a distant building – not a star. Focus on it roughly using the viewfinder, then use the ‘Live View’ feature on your camera screen to fine tune the focus until it’s sharp. Now swing your camera towards a bright object in the sky – perhaps the star Sirius, or the planet Mars, both of which will be prominent as you read this – and use ‘Live View’ to focus as sharply on it as you can. After that, leave it alone.
Next, aim your camera towards the constellation of Orion, centred roughly on Orion’s Belt. Don’t worry about framing, or foregrounds, you’re just trying to photograph some stars this very first time. When you can see stars clearly on your camera screen, set its ‘Mode’ to ‘Manual’ by turning the appropriate dial, or selecting it from a ‘Settings’ menu. Next, set your camera’s ISO (which mimics the film speed of film cameras) to 1600. Then set the ‘Exposure Time’ to 15 seconds if you’re using a wide-angle kit lens, or 4 seconds if using a standard 50mm lens.
There’s just a few more tweaks and you’ll be ready. Set a ‘Time Delay’ – around 3 seconds or 10 seconds, depending on the make of your camera – as this will give a few seconds to reduce vibrations after clicking the camera’s shutter, keeping your stars as points of light instead of squiggles. Alternately, if you have one, use a remote shutter release to take the picture without touching the camera.
Finally, set the ‘Image Format’ to ‘RAW’ if you want, but it’s not essential at this early stage, no matter what some people may tell you. RAW format images record more information, so give better processing results, but it’s perfectly fine to just stick to JPEG format on the first night if you’re more comfortable with that (or you just forget).
Then take a deep breath and push the button to take your first photo.
It will feel like time has stood still as your camera drinks in all the starlight, but eventually you’ll hear a click telling you it’s finished. If everything worked you’ll have just taken your first astrophoto, so take a look on the preview screen. If a wide-angle lens was used all of Orion will be on it, while a 50mm lens won’t quite get all of it. If it’s a little wonky, don’t worry, it doesn’t matter – this is just your first try. Just look how many more stars are on it compared to pictures taken with your phone camera, and how colourful they are. How cool is that? Congratulations! ▶